Carbon diffusion and nanocrystalline diamond formation in carbon ion-implanted oxides studied by nuclear elastic scattering

Abstract

We have shown that MeV implantation of carbon into fused quartz and sapphire followed by thermal annealing in a suitable environment can result in the formation of diamond. Using cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS), we determined (in a previous paper) that, following annealing, there was a redistribution of carbon from the original implantation depth, depending on the annealing environment, annealing time and annealing temperature. In our search, for the optimum implantation and annealing parameters to maximize the yield of diamond, we have used backscattering spectrometry (BS), with MeV hydrogen, to profile the implanted carbon, taking advantage of the large C(p,p)C scattering cross-section at around 1.73 MeV. We studied samples of fused quartz and sapphire implanted with carbon to a range of doses and annealed in forming gas, oxygen and argon. We show that in an oxygen environment, there is significant carbon loss in fused quartz but not in sapphire while in the other environments no significant loss is reported. We conclude that redistribution of carbon, the formation of nanocrystalline diamond (as seen in cross-sectional TEM) and possible carbon loss is determined both by the mobility of carbon in the host matrix at the prevailing annealing temperatures and, most importantly, the annealing ambient.